Live racing offered three days a week until end of the year

By Bill Giauque Columnist

Sunday

Nov 26, 2017 at 8:01 PMNov 26, 2017 at 8:02 PM

Big time racing has arrived in Central Florida for another year.

Tampa Bay Downs, in Oldsmar, just north of Tampa, opened Saturday with W W Concerto taking the first race of the 2017-18 race meet. The winning six-year-old gelding was trained and owned by top trainer Miguel Feliciano. W W Concerto was bred in Florida by Dr. Mary Beth Stanton of Conundrum Farm in Williston.

The only significant racetrack near Ocala is a two hour and four minute drive via County Road 491 and the Suncoast Expressway toll road. The drive can lead to a fun and exciting day of entertainment experienced for race-goers and people looking for new action experience.

There really is nothing like sitting in the grandstand of a good racetrack with family and friends, getting to know the horses, jockeys and people sitting in your section. It really helps with the family members are friendly.

I have done this in two locations. In Denver at Centennial Turf Club and in Omaha at Ak-Sar-Ben. That’s Nebraska spelled backwards for the uninitiated. Both tracks are gone now, swept away by the evolution of land and commerce.

The Denver site gave way to a development of condos. My brother-in-law bought one of the condos that was situated about where the eighth pole had been located on the racetrack. It took me a long time to forgive him.

In Omaha, it became a power struggle between the townies who wanted everything downtown and the horse racing public. You can guess who won that battle. We gave names to the people seated in our area.

There was Fido and Fang. Their paternity was in doubt, but they did bear a resemblance to each other. Their behavior was identical. Every race they were barking at a horse, jockey, trainer or all three. I think their mom and dad, if they knew him, called them Fido and Fang.

Then, there was Mister Cock. We named him for his incomparable arrogance. He once spiked his binoculars on the cement grandstand floor when the race didn’t go his way. He sat with Mick Jagger. He didn’t sing or strut, but he looked quite a bit like the lead singer of the Rolling Stones.

Meanwhile, back to Tampa Bay Downs. Although the first day of action is in the books for this race meet, five months of racing excitement remain. The track offers the richest stakes program in its 92-year history with 28 stakes carrying purse money of $3.65 million.

Live racing will be offered on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays until Dec. 31 when Sunday racing is added. That schedule will hold through January to May 6.

The likely highlight of the meet will be the running of the $400,000 Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby, which will feature some of the leading Kentucky Derby (G1) contenders on March 10. Last year’s running, featured Tapwrit, which went on to win the third and final jewel of the Triple Crown — the Belmont Stakes.

Feb. 10 will feature the $250,000 Sam F. Davis Stakes (G3), also for three-year-olds and a stepping stone to the Lambholm Tampa Bay Derby. Like Lambholm Tampa Bay Derby day, the Feb. 10 race day will feature two other graded stakes.

Trainer Todd Pletcher, son of J. J. and Joan Pletcher of Peyton Training Center in Ocala, won his third consecutive Tampa Bay Derby and set the track record with the aforementioned Tapwrit. He won the event the two previous years with Destin and Carpe Diem, giving him a record setting five wins in the event.

Pletcher also trained Super Saver to run third in the Tampa Bay Derby, but Super Saver subsequently went on to win the 2010 Kentucky Derby (G1). Street Sense became the only horse to complete the Tampa Bay Derby-Kentucky Derby double.

He was trained by Carl Nafzger who is famous for calling the Kentucky Derby for the sight challenged owner, Mrs. Genter, of Kentucky Derby winner Unbridled. It is a bit of video that will live forever among the sports’ video classics.

Nafzger had the young stock of Genter Stable broken and trained at Ocala Stud. Prior to that, the Genters boarded their horses at Tartan Farms, but that was long ago. Now, it is post time for another season of racing at Tampa Bay Downs.

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